HOUSTON
— Shannon Lucid, a member of NASA’s first astronaut class to include
women, has retired after more than three decades of service to the
agency.

A veteran of five spaceflights, Lucid logged more
than 223 days in space, and from August 1991 to June 2007, held the
record for the most days in orbit by any woman in the world. Lucid is
the only American woman to serve aboard the Russian Mir space station.
She lived and worked there for more than 188 days, the longest stay of
any American on that vehicle. Her time on Mir also set the single flight
endurance record by a woman until Suni Williams broke it in 2006.

“Shannon is an extraordinary woman and scientist. She paved the way for
so many of us,” said Peggy Whitson, chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office at
the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “She was a model astronaut for
long-duration missions, and whether she was flying hundreds of miles up
in space or serving as Capcom [capsule communicator] during the
overnight hours for our space shuttle and space station crews, she
always brought a smile to our faces. Like so many others, I always will
look up to her.”

Lucid, who holds a doctorate in
biochemistry, was selected by NASA in 1978. She joined five other women
as the agency’s first female astronauts. Her first three shuttle
missions deployed satellites. STS-51G in 1985 deployed and retrieved the
SPARTAN satellite; STS-34 in 1989 deployed the Galileo spacecraft to
explore Jupiter; and STS-43 in 1991 deployed the fifth Tracking and Data
Relay Satellite (TDRS-E). Her fourth shuttle mission, STS-58 in 1993,
focused on medical experiments and engineering tests.

Lucid
traveled aboard Atlantis on STS-76 in March 1996 to the Russian Mir
space station. She performed numerous life science and physical science
experiments during the course of her stay. She returned from the station
aboard Atlantis on STS-79 in September 1996.
In 2002, Lucid
served as NASA’s chief scientist at the agency’s headquarters in
Washington. She returned to Johnson in the fall of 2003 and resumed
technical assignments in the Astronaut Office. She served as a Capcom in
the Mission Control Center for numerous space shuttle and space station
crews, representing the flight crew office and providing a friendly
voice for dozens of friends and colleagues in space.

For Lucid’s complete biography, visit: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lucid.html

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading …

About No Author

• More Posts (27156)